open office design

A design and architecture firm recently performed a survey to illustrate the problem with open office designs.  The conclusion was that these sorts of office configurations, where cubicle walls are either very short or non-existent, make it difficult for employees to focus due to noise and visual distractions. While that firm has obvious reasons to want to encourage businesses to change their employee workspace layout, this is sort of a no-brainer conclusion, and makes me wonder why open offices are popular.  The article mentions a new and large open office being built for Facebook employees with the implication that this is the popular thing to do now.

The driving force for this sort of layout are cost and improved collaboration, but I do not believe that these benefits come near to outweighing the costs.  I do agree with the idea that the ability to collaborate is a good thing, but is it so bad that someone would have to walk a few steps to do that?  Is gaining that ten seconds worth losing the ability to escape distractions long enough to complete something?  Is the space and materials cost savings worth a less productive and more frustrated worker?

Many years ago in one of my less enjoyable roles I worked in what was essentially a large cube or bullpen with eighteen other people.  This arrangement lasted about nine months, and I do remember accomplishing things during that time, but I also remember not being able to focus on the task at hand.  It was a noisy environment, and at any given time there could be two or three speakerphone conversations going on at once.  Given how stressful the job was, there were frequently people tossing a ball or something else of the sort to let off some steam.  The nature of the job did not reward focus as much as speed and efficiency, though, so maybe that open office made sense there.

Now, I am very happy to work in more of an enclosed space.  In fact, even when I was in a bona-fide cube that was a welcome relief.  I like anything that gets rid of my distractions and let me focus on the task at hand.